14 comments:

As long as the subject of the biography is dead and the decendants are happy, I can't the harm either. I think examining the intimate gives an insight into character and from character perhaps a better understanding of the work. I think this applies to all aspects of human endeavour not just the literary.

Two extremely interesting articles, Bryan. Puffy Combs is a guy famous for being famous, I think, kinda like Paris Hilton. (Well, okay, he has more talent: He *was* good in "Monster's Ball.")

As for the literary bios, you are really onto something. Every generation distills a different version of famous people and someone produces a bio. that suits that generation's beliefs (I was at the MLA conference, by the way, that held the session including the infamous paper, "Jane Austen and the Masturbating Girl" -- believe me, that concept would have been inconceivable before the 1980s).

Some years ago I was part of an NEH seminar on literary biography run by N. John Hall (major Trollope biographer who has also written books on Beerbohm & others). He made some very interesting points about the genre: Either you have a thesis or you don't. He said he avoided having any kind of a thesis because he did *not* want his bio. of Trollope to only endure for this generation.

A line relating to biographies from the then reclusive and fragile Syd Barrett comes to mind. In response to all the cult fascination with himself he said, "I'm not anything you think I am anyway." Simple words but a lot of depth I think from a real genius.

Really interested in your essay on biography in the Times- just written a kind of response though I think I agree with you generally on the value of it. Its a good article- thanks you made me think a lot about what biography was. I'd be interested in your views on whta the difference was between voyeurism into the life of a long dead character take Jane Austen and a fictional character. In a sense I wonder if they are the same- and whether in those cases good biography perform the same roles as good literature. Cheers for the article though

I'm just wondering, Bryan, if you feel comfortable doing the interview pieces? Feeling comfortable as in do you feel it's your job to penetrate to the deeper self rather than simply having an interesting discussion with an interesting person. And if so whether this is felt to be quite an odd and loaded situation. These interview pieces are not too comparable with a biography tyhough and there's obviously consent going on. Regarding biographies I wonder how us mere mortals would feel about a stranger pouring over our lives extracting what stories and insights they can. Although the notion is appalling to me, some/many are clearly only too happy to have themselves poured over. My explanation is the illusory ego gets to feel more secure about its existence once many other egos are looking at it. Surely all these egos can't be wrong. The tragedy then of the fading star who perhaps actually feels himself/herself(what tedium) to be fading into non-existence as the public's focus wanes, and the poor ego is once again left with the distinct possibility that annihilation lies around the corner.

Good answer, Bryan, especially when as you say, the "person" is more of an image projection than the real person. Your role then in the nature of truth revealer but I can see how it might be a lot tougher than relatively abstract ideas about culture, science etc. On the idea of celebrity being a means of bolstering belief in the ego, I was wondering about how the focus of consciousness can create a kind of energy pathway. For example, if you are looking at the Mona Lisa in the Louevre, you are also somehow locking into a secondary reality created by all the minds that have focused on the image. And so is there some kind of reality resulting from all the attention focused on a David Beckham, Madonna etc? A kind of daemon for the recipient of all the attention to feed off!

On the subject of interviews, Bryan, I have a question which has puzzled me, and a number of friends, for some time. A large proportion of newspaper and magazine interviews seem to devote a large percentage of their word-count to describing the, typically banal, circumstances in which the interview takes place. The nature of the hotel lobby or hotel-room in which the interview takes place, or the clothes worn by the interviewee, are often described in great detail. Why is this, exactly? Many of these interviews are conducted after the interviewer has travelled a considerable distance to meet the interviewee, and I'm not alone in being irritated by the proportion of the text which is occupied by the interviewer's own, often commonplace, observations. Do interviewers often come away with very little in the way of useful information from the interviewee? If you're going to travel a long distance to interview someone, surely you should make the effort to plan the interview properly, including a number of back-up strategies if one or two lines of enquiry fail to yield anything interesting?

I'm not necessarily throwing this criticism at yourself, Bryan, but I would be interested in your own thoughts on this phenomenon.

Gordon,Historically, this style probably goes back to the New Journalism of the sixties - Tom Wolfe, Hunter Thompson, Nicholas Tomalin etc - in which the reporter became an essential part of the story. This, in turn, was probably inspired by McLuhan - The Medium is the Message etc. Basically, it was a way of saying, 'This is the whole truth'. The influence has persisted until, now, it is more or less an unnoticed orthodoxy. For me, it works best with pieces like the Diddy interview because he plainly is not intending to say very much, possibly he does not have much to say, and because the absurdity of the rap star entourage makes good copy. With Clive James, last week, there was minimal set-up material. But, in general, I do think a description of the situation, clothes etc does make the piece more rounded and suggestive. It's also just the way I work, though observation as much as interrogation. I was once so bored by interviewing an actress over lunch that I made the meal the hero of the piece. It was a kind of revenge for wasting my time. I'm sorry if it is not to your taste. It entertains me and, on the whole, my readers. Thanks for asking, it's a good question.

And on the subject of Diddy, it's not improbable that he is familiar with Robert Greene's '48 Laws of Power'. In particular, "Law 4 - Always Say Less than Necessary: When you are trying to impress people with words, the more you say, the more common you appear, and the less in control. Even if you are saying something banal, it will seem original if you make it vague, open-ended, and sphinxlike. Powerful people impress and intimidate by saying less. The more you say, the more likely you are to say something foolish."

Your piece on biography pleased me generally but worried me about a detail. Not only does the desciption of Kathryn Hughes's George Eliot biography as 'definitive' differ with nearly all the specialists who reviewed it when it first came out, it risks further embittering Rosemary Ashton, despite the apparent early success of her new book about _142 Strand_. Hughes is a professional author, not a professional George Eliot specialist, and her book often doesn't rise to the standard of accuracy and soundness set by Ashton who must now look on and see Hughes's and, worse, Frederick Karl's bios better regarded.

Having received a far-from-glowing (I'd say unfair) review of my own book on _George Eliot's English Travels_ from Ashton, I think we should all do our best to keep her in good temper.

Yikes. I hate the idea of keeping a few critics in good temper. And this despite my recent flaming on another blog and also, some years ago, the attempt of Merlin Holland (grandson of Oscar Wilde) to sue me and Victorian Studies magazine for pointing out -- quite accurately -- that he charged biographers by the word for everything they quoted from the Wilde archives, hence shaping and influencing scholarship on Gramps (and, by the way, no one better say much about the ridiculous theory, according to Holland, that Wilde died of syphilis. He didn't like much attention to either that or O.W.'s homosexuality).

I'm with England's late and wonderful biographer, Ian Hamilton, that keepers of the flames be damned -- try to tell the truth as you know it.

As for what subjects look like and how they're dressed, that's exactly what every female reader of an interview wants to know. Especially when the subject is someone considered a sex symbol (and I suppose Diddy qualifies there, too).

I very much liked your interview with him, Bryan. I think you captured something, got a little more than he intended to give you.

A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.